


Together at Last

by IneffableAlien



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Anathema Device Ships Aziraphale/Crowley, Aromantic Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley & Anathema Device Friendship, Crowley and Aziraphale have been having sex since Eden, Existentialism, Ficlet, Gen, Post-Canon, allosexual Crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-02 20:08:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,304
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24082585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IneffableAlien/pseuds/IneffableAlien
Summary: All the fanfic lied.
Relationships: Crowley & Anathema Device
Comments: 18
Kudos: 67
Collections: Ixnael’s Recommendations, Ixnael’s SFW corner





	Together at Last

**Author's Note:**

> I complained one night in the server about wanting more Aromantic!Crowley content, and specifically not automatically also asexual or demisexual whenever I do find any. And for some reason it seems I never write it despite being alloaro myself. I don't even necessarily headcanon it, I'd just like the option to read more of it from time to time.
> 
> Or, the short where Alien plays with subverting _all_ the tropes :)
> 
> Consider this my little "love" (lol) letter to all the other aros out there in fandom. If you think you're alone, you're not.

“So,” Anathema said wistfully, “how does it feel that you finally get to be together?” She sounded uncharacteristically moony—the high romance of it all! Six thousand years of pining! Quelle goals.

Crowley bit back a pleased smile that he figured inappropriate for a demon, even a retired one (was that the right term for it? Banished? Excommunicated?). Two years had gone by so fast since the world hadn’t ended, which was a blip time-wise. More than a year of that period had been spent primarily in his flat, both he and the angel traumatized and adrift.

They still were, of course, and would likely be for centuries. Heaven, it had barely been six months ago they were still going through the motions of doing … their _jobs._ Crowley popping off from the bookshop to engage in evil(-ish) demon-ly behaviors, knowing full well he had no one to whom he could report. But he didn’t know what to do with himself, or what purpose he could have. So he flit about, all nervous efforts to derail the oncoming train of existential anxiety, constantly confused as to the “meaning” of life (he’d thought he had been clueless about this before, but that was nothing compared to his current state).

He may as well have been a human.

“Ehh,” said Crowley eloquently in response. Contrary to what one might have believed, Crowley had had the infrequent human friend over the millennia, although he would not have used that word. Crowley didn’t generally like anyone other than the angel. But he often found that he did not _dis_ like witches.

Listen, let’s just say they tended to be more understanding of certain things.

Crowley shifted on his seat at the bar, where he was drinking Talisker and Anathema was nursing a lychee martini. It was unspoken yet understood that she would order one last before she suddenly realized she had to go, and if Crowley drained something so cloyingly sweet, well, that was just because wasting it would be alcohol abuse. “I don’t know,” he confessed, an honest go-to answer when asked about his feelings.

“Well, there has to be a difference,” Anathema pushed. “Like what about—you know.” She grinned wickedly.

Crowley did know. He didn’t just fall off the dildo truck. And it wouldn’t really have occurred to him as an occult being wearing a meatsuit to consider the topic shameful or even that private. “That’s good, yeah,” he said, one side of his mouth tipping into a smile. “That’s always been good.”

Anathema’s jaw dropped. _“Always?”_ she repeated, in a conspiratorial whisper. “How long??”

“Ah, always,” Crowley said with a shrug. He looked down at his lap to hide a little laugh, a rather human expression of vulnerability. “It was so”—he fought to think of a less soft word, gave up—“so nice, when you’re in Eden, you don’t even know what those parts are called let alone how they can feel …”

Anathema’s eyes softened once more. She sighed, briefly touching her chest. “You’ve had to hide it that long, that’s so—”

Crowley knocked back his Scotch, set the tumbler up front for the bartender. _“Hide it,”_ he repeated sarcastically, clearly rolling his eyes behind the sunglasses. “We never had to hide it.”

“What?!” Anathema sounded vaguely disgusted, as one does when they figure out that they are probably not about to get a good story after all. “What do you mean, you never had to hide it? I thought that you got to be together now, I thought Aziraphale was afraid of Heaven, of liking you, I thought—”

“Leave the bottle,” Crowley snapped at the bartender refilling his glass. “Of course we couldn’t be together,” he said, exasperated. “Do you have any idea what they would have done to us if we had, _hngk,_ been together, back then?” The words sounded obscenely intimate in his mouth. “If we had, I don’t know, revealed our forms, or or or—merged interdimensional planes, or,” he dropped his tone here to one of sheer terror: _“preened one another?”_

“No,” said Anathema, unexpectedly loud, “he’s just been fucking a demon for thousands of years instead!”

The middle-aged woman drinking her kamikaze on the opposite side of Anathema shot her a dirty look, which Anathema caught on instantly. “Oh, don’t fucking listen in then!” Anathema snarled, before spinning to fully face Crowley. It warmed Crowley’s metaphorical little black heart, and he remembered why he liked her.

“Thanks for that,” he said genuinely.

“That’s why we’re friends,” said Anathema, “we hate the same people. Anyway,” she continued, “I’m just trying to understand here.”

“What aren’t you understanding?” said Crowley. “They weren’t extincting him for enjoying _food,_ were they?”

Anathema had to admit, that made a lot of sense. “So it was just the two of you, for thousands of years?” she asked. “That’s still really sweet.”

Crowley threw back half a Scotch. “For thousands of years?” he said. “No, of course not. A little hedonist, he is.”

Anathema looked pained. “But it was different with him,” she pressed. “Like—transcendental. A whole other level of mutual pleasure—”

“If you’re asking if he was the best I ever had,” Crowley said flatly, swirling his glass, “not only is the answer no, I also think that’s a really unfair question, and I’ll personally never understand why you people torture yourselves with jealousy like that.”

“So,” Anathema said cautiously, “it’s love. That’s the thing that transcends all physicals acts. You’re free to openly love each other now.”

“Well,” said Crowley, emptying his glass again, “we don’t love each other.”

Anathema looked horrified. “What do you mean, you don’t love each other?!”

Crowley opened his mouth, then closed it, puzzling something out. “I mean,” he said slowly, “I absolutely adore Aziraphale. Do you have any idea how many times I’ve saved that clever idiot from discorporating?” He paused. “But it’s not what you mean by that word.”

Anathema stared silently.

“That whole concept of romantic love?” said Crowley. “It’s not even that old. Western invention, that is. And for the record, I’m not sure it did your lot a whole lotta good.”

Anathema peered into her drink, taking all that in. “Huh,” she said.

“You don’t even know what we mean when we say ‘love,’” Crowley said, more desperately than nasty. Secretly, deep down, Crowley did wish sometimes that someone, anyone, other than Aziraphale could understand him, too, even if only a little. He thought, it must be nice to be understood. Of course, Crowley had no way of knowing that humans feel exactly the same way about each other, just as singular in the individual islands of their minds. “All angels do is _‘love,’”_ he said, “even the hateful ones. _Because it’s what they do._ And, well,” he winced a little, knowing how the next bit sounded to human ears—“demons just—can’t.”

“Crowley,” she said gently, “for what it’s worth? I think that you’re perfectly capable of love. I think that you’re too hard on yourself.”

 _This is one time I’m not being hard on myself,_ Crowley thought.

But he couldn’t be angry with her for not speaking his language.

“So,” said Anathema, sitting up to collect herself, “sex doesn’t appear to be all that significant to you … and sex with Aziraphale is average—”

“Hey,” Crowley interrupted her, “I never said that—for your information Aziraphale is quite above average at corporeal sex.”

“Fine, fine, above average, not the best,” Anathema amended, “and you’re not in love the way I understand it, and you believe being ‘in love’ is something humans made up.” Anathema shook her head, looking irritated. “So what’s any different now than before?”

Crowley poured himself another drink. He sipped for several seconds, rather than trying to say anything. Then he smiled.

“Everything,” he said at last.

**Author's Note:**

> xx [siliconealien](http://siliconealien.tumblr.com)


End file.
